Ecdysterone analogue Bio103 has more anabolic effect than its mother compound

Among the men and women who really understand it - the bodybuilders who used the stuff - opinions about ecdysterone's effectivenss are divided, but according to scientists, ecdysterone really hasanabolic properties. It's so effective that the French company Biophytis [biophytis.com] is studying whether ecdysterone is a cure for muscle diseases. Biophytis has already chemically modified the ecdysterone molule into a molecule that is a little more effective than its mother compound.

Bio103

Biophytis was founded in 2006 by French scientists associated with the Sorbonne university in Paris. Biophytis wants to market natural substances as drugs, and has been studying ecdysterone for years. Posters that Biophytis presents at conferences invariably refer to ecdysterone as Bio101. Its modified version is called Bio103.

In 2018 we wrote about modified versions of ecdysterone that exceeded the anabolic effect of ecdysterone. One of them was poststerone, a natural metabolite of ecdysterone. Bio103 resembles poststerone, but does not occur in nature.

Animal study
According to a study that Biophytis presented at a congress, [biophytis.com], BIO103 is unable to inhibit the breakdown of muscle mass in mdx mice. Mdx mice have congenital muscle disease; they are a popular model for studying Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Bio103 does inhibit the decrease in muscle strength.

The researchers gave their test animals 50 milligrams of Bio103 per kilo of body weight per day. Here you can read how to calculate the human equivalent of that dose.

Bio103 does not inhibit catabolic proteins such as MuRF1 in muscle cells. The synthetic ecdysteroid does stimulate the endogenous antioxidant thioredoxin-1.

Ecdysterone versus Bio103
In a recent patent, researchers from Biophytis compared the anabolic effect of ecdysterone with that of Bio103. They did this in an animal study in which mdx mice received 50 milligrams of Bio103 or ecdysterone per kilo of body weight.

The figure below shows that Bio103 has a stronger positive effect on muscle strength than ecdysterone. Bio103 seemed to make the mdx mice even stronger than healthy mice [C57].

Ecdysterone makes muscle tissue produce more blood vessels, Biophytis discovered. This biological effect explains part of the muscle-enhancing effect of ecdysteroids. In this respect too, the effect of Bio103 exceeded that of ecdysterone.

Tip
It is not difficult to synthesize Bio103, and there are reliable suppliers of ecdysterone. A tip for athletes who want to experiment with these extremely interesting substances: too high doses do not work or even have the opposite effect.